AEW Five Fingers of Death 9/25 - 10/1 Part 2

AEW WrestleDream 10/1/23

MD: Since there's so much to cover, I'm only going to do a full write-up if I have a lot to add. I don't have a lot to say about Kingston vs Shibata, for instance, just a few sentences. The announcers covered it well at the start, noting it was sort of a clash between the UWF-inspired NJPW style and the King's Road AJPW style, and at the end where they pointed out that Kingston had used up his theoretical rope breaks to protect the Pure Champion in his loss. I thought the image of Shibata rising up in the corner as Eddie was beating him down was absolutely iconic and shouldn't be lost. Likewise, Shibata goading Eddie with kicks worked really well. They kept the pop-ups to a minimum, a brief flash in the overall match. The finish effectively got over the power bomb as Eddie's finish moving forward and not just a one time thing.

While there was a sense of anticipation of the post-match hanging over the main, it was still a definite hit. A 2/3 falls match, much like a Texas Death Match, allows for different finishes than usual. The turtleneck bit was brilliant but might have felt like robbing the fans in a different match; using a countout after the stairs shot really put it over as something even more gruesome than normal but would have been impossible in a different main event. Christian having trouble getting him over for that spot added instead of detracted because it made it seem less cooperative, like less of a "spot" and more of a murder. That's something with Christian's offense in general. It was a lot of him just leaning on Darby instead of carefully placing move (or counter) after move (or counter). The best part of the post-match was Christian's overall demeanor. He wasn't horrified or excited to see Copeland show up. He was begrudgingly accepting that "this guy" was here again and that even in the best case, he'd have to share the spotlight. I don't think anyone else in wrestling would have played it quite like that.

Bryan Danielson vs Zack Sabre Jr.

MD: Let's start at the end. Post-match, Sabre refuses the handshake and Danielson calls Aubrey Edwards back into the ring. She's a hometown hero, much like Danielson, and there's a special connection between them, as there's footage of Aubrey crying during Danielson's retirement speech. He's on record on saying that he wasn't even sure what he was thinking in bringing her back, that it just felt right because the referee is such an important part of the match. That's the cool thing about art though, about everything we do in writing about it. Intent matters, but not nearly as much as effect. After a grinding, focused, measured technical match, one so good and credible that it was the spot in the show that they chose to cut to a MMA star afterwards, Danielson chose to give Aubrey her flowers. What that evoked to me was the theater, that curtain call where the actors take their bow and then clap towards the stage crew, light operators, the pit band. Danielson chose this moment, after this match, to do something which pulled the "curtain" down in as directly figurative a way as I can imagine. It wouldn't have worked after almost any other match. It would have seemed winking and cutesy and metatextual and pretentious, no matter the intent. Here, it felt appropriate, as if we'd reached a transcendent moment of wrestling as a performance art, and just this one time, we were allowed to acknowledge it.

I've been through this twice now, once just experiencing it, once trying to make sense of it. Because of that second pass, I can tell you that it was the fourth exchange of the match where they had all of the quick ins and outs and clever reversals and escapes; that's where Sabre knocked down Danielson's structural arm to disrupt the Indian Deathlock, for instance. That entire exchange was amazing, everything you'd want from a war of technical pro wrestlers. Narratively, however, if you want a skeleton key to the effect of the match (leaving intent aside again), Moxley's commentary provided it early on. Danielson is a reactive wrestler. That's the key to the match.

There were two big transitions, or more appropriately, act breaks. The first was Sabre goading Danielson into using his steel-reinforced right arm for a strike only to cleverly block it and damage it heavily. That would be Sabre's "end" throughout the rest of the match. He wanted to hurt the arm enough that he could get a submission with it. Even when he hit some other move, it was all to create an opportunity to go back to the arm. The second was Danielson starting on the leg, first in the corner with kicks and then with the dragon screws, most especially that stomach-turning one where everything seemed jammed in all the wrong directions. That, however, was not an "end", but instead a "means," something Danielson could use as a point of leverage to open Sabre up for the offense that he really wanted to hit, to create opportunities, to help facilitate escapes when his arm was in danger.  

On paper, Sabre's strategy should have been the one to win the day. In fact, you could make the case (and Danielson, Nigel, and Sabre all made it in one form or the other) that Sabre may have come out of this looking like the better technical wrestler. Just not like the better overall wrestler. He had one singular goal in the arm whereas Danielson, as per his personality and character, was adaptable, flexible, able to ride with the currents of violence and pain instead of trying to bend them to his will. And isn't that what a technical wrestler does? Technical wrestling is about control, about manipulating the human body in ways it shouldn't bend, about playing chess three steps ahead, about constraining possibilities so that there is only one inevitable future, the one you define. Danielson is, in many ways, the antithesis of that, which is why, when it seemed like Sabre had finally gotten him, Danielson, not ready for it so much as able to react to it due to his openness of mind, turned it right around into the RegalPlex, setting Sabre up for the Knees.

Danielson's 2023 is full of matches that play out not quite like you'd expect or anticipate. Sometimes it's due to injury. Sometimes it's simply due to unforeseen circumstances placing him into a match not his making. Here, in this battle of the greatest technical wrestlers, he ceded the competition entirely, instead serving as the ultimate steel for the very best to prove himself against. It just shows that to best appreciate Danielson, sometimes we have to take a page out of his book and be reactive and adaptive ourselves.